Hidden Composition
by Alice Ariell
Summary: The time to bring Hannibal to justice is here. Will is preparing to do what must be done when Hannibal entices him with a reunion he has longed for. The lure becomes the lured as a trip to Japan and a gift worth traveling for is offered.


The room is dead with silence.

Will knows this must be the last of his sessions with Dr. Lecter. Jack has made it clear; he isn't waiting for another body to drop. He wants Will to drop his cover and arrest him. Tonight. Or Jack would feel that Will was holding something back and arrest _him_. Again.

"You have the look of a tired man tonight," Hannibal observes. He can see uneasiness in his friend begin to radiate from his skin. He has begun to sweat. Of course, the nightmares would never leave him. Thoughts of Abigail. Alana. Jack…"Tell me, Will. What does Jack have you working on now?"

Will tenses at the name. His employer has instilled a fear into his body that reminded him more of his father than Hannibal ever did. "I haven't been to the FBI in weeks. And…I am grateful for that. I think I…I'd like to change careers."

A smile from his therapist. "What other means of employment are you considering?"

"I'd get a boat. See where it takes me."

"You want to retreat."

"I'm unsure there's another alternative. I feel lost.Killing has made me feel lost."

"You said it made you feel alive. Powerful."

"It does. Which makes me…"

"Miss it?"

"…yes," Will says in the smallest of voices.

"When you fantasize about killing me, is it the ending you enjoy, or the crescendo?"

"The whole composition."

A silent second. "Will. I want you to close your eyes. Imagine a new composition."

Will shuts his trapdoor lids. "What are the notes?"

"A sky alight with stars over the mountains. A faint, familiar voice calling you from the hall. A place removed from murder. From doubt. From your past."

"A place that feels like home," Will repeats.

"I have been feeling homesick myself…perhaps you would like to join me…on a trip. Of sorts."

This is not the farewell that needed to happen tonight. "You want to retreat," he mirrors back to Hannibal.

"I'm unsure there is an alternative. Killing has made you feel lost. When killing made me feel lost, I stayed with my aunt in Japan. What she taught me there helped define who I am now."

"You're afraid the FBI may have a witness in the building case against you," Will dares to say.

"They have a witness. Yes," he tilts he head ever so slightly. "They may have as many as three."

"And you believe if you run, they won't be able to find you and bring you to justice." He does not sound convinced.

"I believe there are places the eye of the FBI cannot reach. Places in the world and places in your mind, Will."

"Places you've hidden from them."

"A man can be private with other men, but never with his beloved." Will has stopped breathing. Hannibal is choking him from the inside, tightening the invisible leash that has been around his neck since the day he served him Cassie Boyle. "I did not institutionalize you, Will. Jack Crawford did. I did not stop believing in you. Alana Bloom did. I did not force you to move from town to town, never allowing you to make emotional connections…your father did." Will's sight in narrowing to a slit. Darkness blooms around his vision.

"I have no one…but you. And you have no one…but me," he responds limply.

"That is not entirely true. I told you once that should time reverse and a shattered tea cup come together, you may be reunited with Abigail."

Will's eyes open as though the doctor injected adrenaline straight into his heart. "Please, doctor. Don't dangle Abigail over my head like a carrot if the carrot is rotting."

"You said yourself that Abigail's ear was removed while she was alive."

"Please." Will cannot comprehend the reason he would taunt him this mercilessly.

"If you come with me, you may see her again." The trap is set. All along Will had been under the assumption, no, the _delusion _that _he_ was the lure. But the lure was Abigail. The lure had _always_ been Abigail. The moment the doctor and patient had begun to connect happened at her bedside. And there was nothing Will could do to change that fact.

"You…kept her…alive? Hidden? From me?"

"Sometimes God punishes us to test us. Our strength. Our resolve. Our worth."

Will is used to Hannibal comparing himself to God. "Tell me doctor, what am I worth?"

"_Everything_. To me…to Abigail. She resents me for what I've done. I don't blame her. She needs someone to trust. Will you abandon her?"

Hannibal has gone too far with this statement, but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters now but that the distant line between Will and Abigail has been tied into a perfect blood knot.


End file.
